Liar Rossi
by anipwrites
Summary: Everyone in class seems to be absolutely enraptured by anything Lila says. Her tales of grandeur, her celebrity encounters-everyone loved to hear the story of her exciting life. Everyone save for a few people who knew it all to be lies. Marinette, Adrien... and Nathaniel Kurtzberg?


Hi! Welcome to _Liar Rossi!_

I honestly haven't written fanfiction in a good bit, and I was pretty behind on Miraculous Ladybug until last month. Within which I finally watched Chameleon, and I personally understood why everyone was so upset about everyone acting so out of character.

Though I happened to notice that, in these analyses about the characters' behavior, most people skipped over the fact that one character was never really seen interacting with Lila at all.

And so, with a mix of post-episode salt and the realization that I could write a decent possibility involving my favorite character _yet again,_ I present to you...

 _Liar Rossi._

* * *

It was… honestly kind of funny, how everyone believed every word out of Lila's mouth.

And by 'kind of funny,' he meant almost pathetic.

Sure, he'd been tricked the first day she was here. She'd shown up after summer break and dazzled everyone with her tales of grandeur, of conveniently knowing anyone and everyone they'd be interested in getting a chance to meet with. She'd told Nino she knew Steven Basielberg and could mention his work, told Rose that she knew Prince Ali _personally_ and had flown in his private jet, told _everyone_ that she was such close friends with Jagged Stone that he'd written a song about her on his next album _._ She'd even told him that she'd met Leonard Armistice's daughter- -one of his _favorite_ comic book artists- -and could show "Leo" his art blog. It was easy to fall for the lies, but when one looked hard enough they realized the pretty picture was just a mirage.

It'd taken him about three days after her first- -and last- -day at Francois-Dupont to figure it out. Leonard Armistice didn't _have_ a daughter, he only had two sons. She'd never even asked Nathaniel what his art blog _was,_ just said she'd show it to this man that she clearly had never met before. Which meant that everything else she'd said to everyone else was probably a lie as well. Yet, within a few short hours, Lila Rossi had their class wrapped around her little finger.

Then she stopped showing up to school, and Nathaniel figured she was somewhere else, and this whole thing had been a 'lie-and-run' kind of deal of some sort. Of course, she wasn't done. There were weekly video calls- -video calls with the whole class- -where she claimed to be on a trip to the kingdom of Achu with Prince Ali to help kids in hospitals or whatever she happened to come up with. Claiming to be spearheading major environmental movements with other countries. Yet, they never heard of them outside of her calls…

Nevertheless, it seemed like Nathaniel was one of the only people to realize that every word out of Lila's mouth was laced with a thousand lies. Marinette seemed to know too, somehow, and even tried to call her out on it every chance she got. But the rest of the class was still entranced by her. It was crazy. But Nathaniel didn't have the courage to speak up and say anything- -if their _class president and everyday Ladybug_ wasn't listened to, imagine what they'd say if _he_ said something.

The insanity seemed to reach a head when Lila emailed Mme. Bustier to tell her that she would be back in school the next day. The class was in a tizzy, excited about how their friend Lila would be returning to school that day.

' _Is she really a friend if she's never said a truthful thing while we've known her?'_ he couldn't help but ask himself. Hell, they couldn't even be entirely sure her real name was _Lila Rossi._

But he played along. When people asked if he was excited, he said yes. When the class decided they needed to move seats so they could allow Lila to sit in the front for her tinnitus, he just moved. Sure, he couldn't draw as freely without being behind Ivan, but Alix was beside him and Rose and Juleka were behind them. It would be fine, even if it nagged in the back of his head that _Jagged Stone had never owned a cat in the span of his entire career, how could Lila save his cat from a runway._

Not that the topic ever strayed away from Lila for longer than a few minutes. It was exhausting to even hear about her.

Marinette seemed even _less_ happy. She was pretty determined to prove Lila wrong, but every time she tried, Lila had a quick comeback that turned the class's adoration back her way. It was nuts.

To be fair, she had plenty of reason to be upset- -Nathaniel himself hadn't even realized she'd somehow been forced to the back of the class until she'd entered the class and faced off with Lila. Sure, Nathaniel didn't mind being in the back, being relatively unnoticed, but _Marinette?_ Marinette was amazingly popular, and he couldn't imagine going from the second row with her best friend all the way to the back row with no one. Part of him wondered why Alya was so okay with this, but the other part knew why. She was sitting next to her boyfriend, and was just as entranced with Lila as everyone after their 'interview' got her blog a ton of views. He was tempted to move and sit with Marinette, but there was no way he'd be able to focus sitting so close to her, and he wasn't even sure if his presence was welcome. He'd tried to drown her. Sure, he'd been akumatized when he'd done it, but still. He could barely make himself _look_ at old pictures of Super Nathan, it'd be totally understandable if she didn't want to sit near him.

During lunch, everyone was crowded around her, practically serving as her wait staff after she claimed a sprained wrist kept her from writing notes and grabbing her own food. _Wasn't wearing a brace, but whatever._ Marinette pulled Alya and Nino aside, surely to try and tell them what was _really_ going on, and in the process threw a napkin at Lila. And she caught it, somehow still managing to play it off, this time as trying to protect Max's eyes from getting gouged out.

 _And they bought it._

Everyone crowding around Lila turned on Marinette, accusing her of 'trying to hurt Lila on purpose' or whatever bullshit. Despite the fact that the napkin had no more corners because it was balled up, was headed nowhere near Max's face, Max's _glasses_ would have blocked it, and Lila sounded _so fake when she was pretending to be hurt._

It was horrifically ridiculous that everyone was acting like this. Part of him couldn't help but think that maybe Lila was an akuma sent to their class to try and cause strife, because neither Marinette _nor_ Adrien had been akumatized at this point in time, and if they hadn't been yet then whatever tipped them over the edge would make them pretty damn powerful akumas, right? Nightmarishly powerful.

The next class period, Lila had some grand tale about Ladybug saving her from… something, Nathaniel had honestly missed that part. It had something to do with her going up the Eiffel Tower, which luckily didn't affect her tinnitus too much because Ladybug had brought an earplug for her right ear and it was just fine!

Right ear. Even though, just that morning, she'd said it was in her _left_ ear. This was bullshit! Bullshit the rest of their class was eating up. Maybe he was only noticing these things because he was so acutely aware that Lila was lying with every breath. After all, that wasn't necessarily something it was easy to catch someone on. In the corner of his eye, he saw Marinette getting up from the stairs- -surely to say something- -but Adrien stopped her. Odd…

Then the tables turned a bit. That class, Marinette sat in her usual spot in the back. Adrien, for some reason, decided to join her, leading to her crush flaring up so hard she missed Mme. Bustier calling her name, which got her moved to the front with Lila. Lila apparently didn't want that, so she claimed her tinnitus was miraculously healed by Ladybug's magic, and tried to sit in the back with Adrien only to have Alya move to sit with Marinette, Adrien move to sit with Nino, and then next thing they all knew everyone was back in the old seating chart. Which, on the one hand, was great, because now he could sit behind Ivan and draw again.

What wasn't great was that Lila was sitting beside him.

' _This is just great. Now she's going to try to butter me up like she's been with the rest of the class.'_ he thought to himself as he took out his textbook tablet and his sketchbook. ' _Well. At least I_ know _what she's doing, and I'm not going to let her trick me.'_

For the majority of the class time, Lila kept quiet as Mme. Bustier taught. She seemed to be stewing a bit in her own anger. Nathaniel could feel it even if she didn't speak, the tension was so thick it was like his hair was standing on edge.

But then, all of a sudden, it was like Lila's entire mood shifted. And at the end of class that day, when everyone was packing their things and getting ready to head out, Lila grabbed him by the wrist.

"Hey, Nathaniel! I almost forgot! I need to know what your blog's called, so I can tell Leonard about- -" she began to say, but Nathaniel let out a sigh.

"Don't even worry about it, Lila." he said, looking at the hand on his wrist in hopes she'd let go. "I already know you don't really know Leonard Armistice, you're just trying to trick me into liking you. It's not going to work."

"W-What?" the blood seemed to have drained from Lila's face, and the smug grin on her face had shifted into a grimace. "What do you mean, I'm friends with his daughter- -"

"He doesn't have any daughters. He has two sons."

"O-oh, did I say I knew _Leonard's_ daughter? I know the daughter of one of his sons, so I can still-"

"His oldest son is _twelve,_ Lila. Look, if you want to be friends, then you'll have to stop trying to lie to me. And if you want to keep lying to me, then the least you could do is fact check."

"O-Okay, so maybe I told a little fib, but I swear that I- -"

"Jagged Stone's never owned a cat, either. He's allergic, you got that right, but he's known he's allergic since he was twenty-one, so unless you were running into runways when you were _five_ and he _hadn't started out yet_ , I don't think you saved his kitten from a runway."

"You- -"

"And napkins don't gouge people's eyes out. So, there's that too."

"So, what now? You going to try to parent me like Ladybug did?"

"I don't think it's 'parenting' as much as it is 'bribing.'"

"What?"

"How about this. You _don't_ tell on me when I'm drawing in class, you _don't_ try and trick me and shit, and _stop_ being mean to everyone else, and _maybe_ I won't tell all my friends you're lying every time you open your damn snake mouth."

"Friends? What friends?"

"Alix, Rose, Juleka, Max- -"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about having _friends._ With a snap of my fingers, I can make this whole class turn on you. _Forever._ So tread lightly around me, because if I _am_ a snake, then I've got _bite,_ carrot-head." she planted her hand on the desk, leaning in close, sending him a venomous glare as her other hand squeezed at his wrist tight. "I _dare_ you to try me."

Nathaniel _almost_ felt intimidated, but ultimately he couldn't give fewer shits. "Fine. Challenge accepted. You've got three chances to strike, _Liar Rossi,_ and then I tell everyone." he wrenched his hand away, taking glee in her shocked face. She _totally_ wasn't expecting him to bite back. "You have a nice day. Have fun 'texting Prince Ali.' Or will you be skyping Jagged Stone today?" he scoffed and made his way down the stairs and towards the door.

"You- -"

"Me?" he asked, turning around on his heel in a surprisingly smooth motion that he was almost proud of.

"You- -You'll pay for this!"

"Oh, sure I will." he rolled his eyes and walked out the classroom, making his way home.

This would be… interesting.

* * *

Thanks for reading my story!

This story was beta'ed by wishfulina, flautist4ever, tbehartoo, and disorganizedkitten, all who can be found on tumblr!

You can find me on tumblr at anipwrites!


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